ROY Keane admitted that the majority of Newcastle United’s players might have taken their foot off the pedal for Saturday’s 2-2 draw.

But the Irishman was still happy with his own team’s display. In fact, the Irishman felt that they should have won the game, even though they had to wait until the last few seconds to poach an equaliser.

“I thought we did well, but obviously we have to look at whether Newcastle were in holiday mode, maybe some of them,” said Ipswich Town boss Keane.

“I’m not saying all of them, and I’m not being respectful, but it sometimes happens when you win a trophy that you switch off a little bit. I think that was the case today.

“But from our point of view, we didn’t want to end the season on a flat note, in terms of last weekend’s disappointing home draw (against Doncaster) and losing the previous weekend at Forest (3-0).

“It was a good point for us today and we want to finish with a victory next week.

“You look at where we were earlier in the season, when Newcastle beat us quite comfortably 4-0 at our place, the signs are that we are making progress, although I know there wasn’t the same intensity as in that match.

“I didn’t think Newcastle were particularly good, and they were probably thinking – “we’ll take 2-1” – because they get used to winning.

“But if we’d lost the game I would have been properly upset, because I’m disappointed with the draw,” added Keane.

The Town manager has not been able to pick fault with his team’s effort and work-rate all season. This hard-work was again a feature of Saturday’s deserved draw.

“We had the better of the chances, and we scored two good goals, but we certainly gave a bad second goal away,” continued Keane.

“I thought all the players did well. I’ve never really once looked at my team and thought that my players have downed tools for me, even when we were very poor at the start.

“We’ve got that going for us, but we just need one or two new players.

The spirit and the work-rate is good, and the goals against is not too bad.

“But we don’t have the goal threat yet, that Newcastle have, which is why this is a very important summer for the football club.

“We have contract situations to be looked at, and we’ll have to tidy that up over the next 14 days,” concluded Keane.